John: Nothing happens to me (draft)

Another nightmare, reliving the time in the cave. That was it; there’d be no more sleeping tonight. John got a glass of water and sat at the desk, trying to wrench his mind out of bloody memories and back into the sterile, civilized present. The cane caught his attention. Simple, functional, and a glaring reminder of everything that had happened. Maybe writing; his therapist wanted him to keep a “blog” to try to tease out his tangled thoughts, since he was less than forthcoming in their sessions.

John retrieved the laptop from the drawer, gaze lingering on the gun a moment before he slid it resolutely closed again. The laptop turned obediently on, and the cursor blinked at him from his absolutely blank blog document.

The problem with explaining, he thought as he stared at the damnable white space, was all the things he couldn’t explain.

 

“How’s your blog going?” were nearly the first words out of Ella’s mouth, as he knew they would be.

“Hmm, fine. Good,” he lied. “Very good.”

She wasn’t having any of it. “Written much?” she asked archly.

No use pretending. “Not a word.”

Now she’d switch to soft and patronizing, he thought with a little sigh as she nodded agreeably.

“John…”

Here it comes.

“…it’s going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life.”

“Sure,” he agreed shortly, because that was better than explaining that it wasn’t civilian life he was concerned about.

“And it will help so much to write about everything that’s happening to you.”

For just a second, phantom fangs closed around the back of his right thigh.

“Nothing happens to me.”

 

He was limping angrily down the street when a semi-familiar voice called his name. When he turned, a stocky man in a suit and overcoat smiled broadly and approached.

“Stamford,” he said, one hand on his broad chest. “Mike Stamford.”

Right, Mike. “Yes,” John said as Mike reminded him they’d been at Bart’s together. “Sorry, yes, Mike, hello.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mike said good-naturedly. “I got fat.” After a moment for polite and untrue protest, he continued, “I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at! What happened?”

An endless moment of images swam before John’s eyes, things he wouldn’t, couldn’t say. “I got shot.”

 

In a restaurant finer than John had eaten at for a very long time, he asked, “So you still at Bart’s, then?”

“Teaching now,” Mike answered, taking a roll from the proffered basket. “Bright young things, like we used to be.” The basket was offered to John; he took a roll. “God, I hate them. What about you? Staying in town ‘til you get yourself sorted?”

Or until he went on a rampage, or starved and then went on a rampage.

“Can’t afford London on an army pension,” he protested lightly. Now, the countryside…easy to get lost out there…

“I dunno, get yourself a…flat-share or something.”

Oh, that was rich. “Who’d want me for a flatmate?” Even if he didn’t put prospective flatmates off, there was that other thing...but Mike was laughing. “What?”

“Well, you’re the second person to say that to me today.”

Despite himself, John was intrigued. “Who was the first?”

 

The classroom was full of computers with a single, lanky man sitting at one, unruly dark hair and a dramatically dark overcoat who looked up briefly as they entered.

“It’s a bit different from my day,” John said quietly.

Mike let out a sharp, amused sound. “You’ve no idea.”

Suddenly, the stranger announced, “Mike, can I borrow your phone? No signal on mine.”

“Well, what’s wrong with the landline?” Mike sighed as he checked his pockets.

“I’d rather text,” the stranger replied shortly, focused on whatever he was typing.

 Mike pulled out a pad. “Sorry, other coat.”

It took John a minute to remember the mobile Harry’d insisted on giving him, and he pulled it out to offer. “Oh, here. Use mine.”

“Oh.” The stranger looked up as John approached and took the phone. “Thank you.”

“That’s an old mate of mine,” Mike offered, patting him on the shoulder. “John Watson.”

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” the stranger asked as he sat down, already working the mobile.

That didn’t…John glanced at Mike, but there was no explanation.

“Afghanistan,” he answered reluctantly. “Sorry, how did you know?”

Explanations, however, were waylaid by a young woman apparently named Molly who was bringing the stranger coffee. He returned John’s phone and then flustered the poor thing, who left the room.

She wasn’t the only one flustered. John still wasn’t sure what to make of the stranger when without warning, he blurted out, “How do you feel about the violin?”

The change of subject did absolutely nothing to help John figure the situation out. “Sorry, what?”

“I play the violin when I’m thinking,” the stranger elaborated with a hint of impatience. “Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you?” he finished casually. “Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”

And just like that it all became clear. “Oh, you told him about me?” John asked Mike, who shook his head.

“Not a word.”

…or maybe not. “Then…who said anything about flatmates?”

“I did,” the stranger announced, standing to put on his coat with a dramatic flourish. “I told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, after lunch, with an old friend clearly home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn’t a difficult leap.”

Well, yes, except… “How did you know about Afghanistan?”

The stranger ignored the question as he turned the computer off. “Got my eye on a nice little place in central London – together, we could afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock,” he said decisively, heading for the door. “Sorry, I’ve got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

“Is that it?” John asked sharply, irritated.

“Is that what?” the stranger countered, pausing by the door.

“We’ve just met and we’re going to go and look at a flat?”

“Problem?”

Problem? That’s it? Again, John glanced at his old mate in disbelief, but there was no help in Mike’s stoic expression. “We don’t know a thing about each other, I don’t know your name, I don’t even know where we’re meeting.”

The stranger paused for a moment like he was gathering patience, although what he had to be impatient about, John couldn’t begin to fathom. “I know you’re an army doctor,” he began, reasonably, “and you’ve recently been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a brother with a bit of money who’s worried about you, but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him. Possibly because he’s an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife.”

That – that couldn’t, how could he know- did he know about that?

“And I know your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic. Quite correctly, I’m afraid. That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?” he finished in a hushed tone, like he was confiding a secret instead of exposing all of John’s. With a tiny smug smirk, he turned back for the door, only to lean back at the last moment. “The name’s Sherlock Holmes, and the address is two-two-one-B Baker Street.”

Then, with a cheeky wink and a brisk ‘Afternoon!’, he was gone.

John looked back at Mike, silently begging for some kind of explanation.

“Yeah,” Mike said in response to any number of unasked questions in John’s expression. “He’s always like that.”

That…could be a problem.

 

The rest of the afternoon, obviously, was spent discovering everything he could glean from the internet about his prospective flatmate. The results were either horrifying or promising, depending on how open a mind this Sherlock Holmes had. If his blog was even half true about the ‘science of deduction’, John had no doubt that his secret would only remain so for a few months at most. The real question was…once Sherlock discovered what, exactly, he was living with…what would he do?

 

221B Baker Street looked unassuming enough. As John stood there examining Mrs. Hudson’s Snax ‘n’ Sarnies, a vehicle pulled up behind him and disgorged its passenger. The scents were familiar enough that it wasn’t a surprise when Mr. Holmes said, “Mrs. Hudson, our landlady.” However, when John used that form of address, the reply was “Sherlock, please.”

They shook hands, and the cab pulled away as they approached the door.

“Getting a special rate,” Sherlock announced. “Owes me a favor. Few years ago, her husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out.”

Well, that could go interesting places.

“You…stopped her husband being executed?” John asked, certain that wasn’t right but not wanting to make any assumptions.

“Oh, no,” was the answer, as though this was a bloody silly thing to ask. “I ensured it.”

What kind of woman were they even renting from? Possibly renting from, since despite Sherlock’s confidence, John refused to fully commit himself just yet.

The door opened, revealing an older woman who embraced Sherlock like a proud auntie before inviting them in. Sherlock practically bounded up the stairs and glanced back long enough to make sure John was following before opening the door and strolling right in. It looked like a decent place, despite all the clutter, and it had a…cozy scent that soothed still-raw instincts.

“Well, this could be very nice,” he said, still trying to maintain a shred of aloofness as he stepped around the corner to check the kitchen. “Oh. Very nice indeed.”

“Yes, I think so,” Sherlock agreed. “My thoughts exactly.”

“As soon as we get all this rubbish cleaned out,” John said, just as Sherlock continued, “So I went ahead and moved in.”

Silence while they stared at each other, painfully aware of having stepped on the other’s emotional toes.

Hesitantly, John broke the silence first. “S-so…this is all your stuff?”

“Obviously, I can straighten things up a bit,” Sherlock replied, moving immediately to do so.

Interesting. Not as confident as he wanted to appear, then. But the flat had a lived-in feel that couldn’t be explained by simply having transferred his clutter to the place in the last twenty-four or thirty-six hours, and more importantly, it had a lived-in smell. There was more to the story than he was telling John, who doubted very much that money was the real reason Sherlock was looking for a flatmate. Protective instincts, the ones that had driven him to the front lines instead of a nice, safe hospital, the ones sharpened by fangs and claws, began to unfurl inside him and, to distract them, he examined the objects on the mantle.

“That’s a…real skull.” He tried to make it a question, but it didn’t work.

“Friend of mine,” Sherlock said casually. “Well…I say friend…” he corrected himself with a little chuckle, and then turned away.

John wondered what exactly happened, and how Sherlock had ensured that Mr. Hudson had met his end in Florida.

“What do you think. Dr. Watson?” asked the widowed landlady.

“Hm?”

“There’s another bedroom upstairs,” she informed him primly, “if you’ll be needing two bedrooms.”

“Well, of course we’ll be needing two,” he replied uncertainly, wondering if she expected him to sleep on the couch, or if there were two cots in Sherlock’s bedroom, or…

“Oh, don’t worry, there’s all sorts ‘round here,” she assured him. “Mrs. Turner, next door, has got married ones.”

She thought…

She thought they were….he was…

…was Sherlock?”

“Sherlock, the mess you’ve made,” she chided, stepping into the sitting room to fuss at the end table.

John didn’t think he could handle being hit on by a man who kept the skull of his…acquaintance…on the mantle. He tried to think of a delicate way to extricate himself from the situation while she bustled around the flat and Sherlock continued his anxious but ineffective efforts to tidy up. But then again, if Sherlock was as good as he claimed, he’d deduce in no time at all that John wasn’t that type.

Comforted, he sat in the lesser-used chair. “Oh, I, um…looked you up on the internet last night.” That seemed like a safe way to say it.

Sherlock glanced over at him before turning away in feigned indifference. “Anything interesting?”

That was a question begging for more questions, but they would have to wait. “Found your website. ‘The science of deduction’.”

“What did you think?”

There, a hair too quick to respond. Aloofness was a sham; he was anxious to hear the answer. John decided to play it cool. “Quite amusing, I suppose.”

“Amusing?” Sherlock was not amused.

“You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and – what was it – a retired plumber by his left hand.” He was baiting the other man, but he had to know exactly how good Sherlock was, how much of it was genuine talent and how much of it was a magician’s act.

“Yes, and I can read your military career by your face and your leg, and your brother’s drinking habits by your mobile phone.”

Genuine affront. He was serious then, and not doing it for a reaction. Okay, now what? He ignored Mrs. Hudson complaining about the state of the flat to ask, “How?” If he was going to have to hide his nature, he wanted to have an idea as to how to do it.

“You read the article.”

“The article was absurd.”

“But I know about his drinking habits,” Sherlock countered. “I even know that he left his wife.”

As John was trying to figure out how next to fish for answers, the landlady interrupted asking about the suicides. “Thought that’d be right up your street,” she said with mild…disapproval? “Been a fourth one now.”

Sirens outside.

“Yes, actually, it’s very much up my street.”

Lights now, out in the street. Sherlock stepped over to the window to peer through the curtains.

“Can I just ask.” John started warily, “what is your street?”

“There’s been a fifth.”

Sherlock’s habit of ignoring questions was going to get on John’s nerves. There were footsteps on the stairs, though, and a man walked right in as if he had been invited.

“Where this time?” Sherlock asked, unsurprised.

How long had he lived in that flat?

“Brixton, Lauriston Gardens,” the newcomer said. “Will you come?”

“Who’s on forensics?”

“Anderson.”

“Anderson won’t work with me,” Sherlock retorted in a challenging sort of way.

“He won’t be your assistant,” the other man wheedled.

“But I need an assistant!”

Apparently there was no answer to that, because the man – probably police, John realized finally – simply repeated, more urgently, “Will you come?”

“Not in a police car,” Sherlock capitulated. “I’ll be right behind.”

“Thank you,” the man said, and then seemed to notice John for the first time, but turned and left without saying anything else.

As the policeman’s footsteps rattled down the stairs, Sherlock’s cool façade dissolved into something more appropriate to a teenage boy having successfully gotten a girl to agree to see a movie.

“Brilliant!” he exclaimed while Mrs. Hudson laughed in delight. “I thought it was going to be a dull evening. Honestly,” he told them, slipping his coat on, “you can’t beat a really imaginative serial killer when there’s nothing on the telly, Mrs. Hudson. I may be out late,” he announced cheerfully. “Might need some food.”

“I’m your landlady, dear, not your housekeeper,” she reminded him firmly, but of course he wasn’t listening.

“Something cold will do. John, make yourself at home. Eh…have a cup of tea. Don’t wait up.”

Yes, because sitting in Sherlock’s flat with all Sherlock’s things and sleeping in either a hopefully-unfurnished room or Sherlock’s bed was what John really wanted to do.

“Look at him dashing about,” Mrs. Hudson said fondly as Sherlock fairly leaped out the door. “My husband was just the same. But you’re more the sitting down type,” she said as John leaned back into the chair, irritated. “I can tell. I’ll make you that cuppa, you rest your leg.”

His leg. The official reason he was invalided out, because he felt like he ought to be limping on it, even though it worked just fine, and he ought to have been limping on it, so he did. Suddenly, it seemed to represent everything that had gone to rubbish in his life.

“DAMN my leg!” he burst out, guilt twisting as the landlady gasped. “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” he told her, trying to hold his anger inside. “It’s just sometimes this bloody thing…”

“I understand, dear,” she assured him. “I’ve got a hip.”

“A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.” When in doubt, be polite.

“Just this once, dear. I’m not your housekeeper.”

But she couldn’t resist being motherly, either. John grabbed a paper and opened it. “A couple of biscuits, too, if you’ve got ‘em,” he called in a show of deadpan teasing.

“Not your housekeeper,” she repeated.

The paper helpfully informed John that the man who’d come to beg with dignity was Inspector Lestrade, lead detective in charge of the investigation, and under mounting pressure to solve the case. That made his coming to Sherlock even more interesting. Was Sherlock…something else, like he was?

He was…

…he was standing in the open door, John could smell him. Why had he come back?

“You’re a doctor,” he said without preamble. “In fact, you’re an army doctor.”

The moment stretched. John folded up the paper and flung it down, struggling to his feet. “Yes.”

“Any good?”

That made him pause. What was he asking? “Very good.”

“Seen a lot of injuries then, violent deaths?”

“Well, yes.” Because there weren’t very many peaceful deaths in a war.

“Bit of trouble, too, I bet.”

John wished he would just come out and say whatever he was working up to. “Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime. Far too much.” That was the ‘safe’ answer, the publically acceptable answer. It was a bloody lie.

Sherlock examined his face and seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Want to see some more?”

“God, yes!”

The other man grinned. “Come on, then.”

Going down stairs rapidly with a cane wasn’t easy, but John had managed tougher things. “Sorry. Mrs. Hudson,” he called as they descended to the street. “I’ll skip the cuppa. Off out!”

“What, both of you?” she asked, slightly scandalized.

“No point sitting at home when there’s finally some halfway interesting murders,” Sherlock protested.

“Look at you, all happy. It’s not decent.” But she didn’t quite sound as if it bothered her.

“Who cares about decent? The game, Mrs. Hudson, is on!”

Oh, brilliant. He was a hunter. He might understand after all. John nodded minutely to the housekeeper before following Sherlock out into the street, where he hailed a taxi as if commanding one to appear out of thin air and stop obediently before him.

 

The taxi side was silent, awkwardly silent with aborted glances bouncing back and forth across the cab, until finally Sherlock sighed and said, “Okay, you’ve got questions.”

He did, but the first of those was, “Where are we going?”

“Crime scene,” Sherlock replied, as if it should have been obvious. “There’s been a murder. Next?”

They bubbled out of him, like they’d been threatening to do since yesterday. “Who are you? What do you do?”

“What do you think?” It was one part question, and one part challenge.

“I’d say private detective, but…”

“But?” Sherlock invited when John would have trailed off.

“But the police don’t go to private detectives.”

“I’m a consulting detective, I’m the only one in the world. I invented the job,” he finished a bit smugly.

That didn’t answer anything. “What does that mean?”

The answer he got sounded rote, as if Sherlock had either given it often or practiced in hope of doing so. “It means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me.”

“But the police don’t consult…” John paused, trying and failing to find a kinder word. “…amateurs.”

The silence this time was almost foreboding; he’d challenged Sherlock, and now he was going to bare his metaphoric fangs at John. The words, when they came, were like bullets fired from the machine gun of his mouth.

 “When I met you for the first time yesterday and asked, Afghanistan or Iraq, you looked surprised.”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t know, I saw. Tanned face, but no tan above the wrists. You’d been abroad, but not sunbathing. Your haircut and the way you hold yourself says military. Your conversation when you entered the room says trained at Bart’s. So, army doctor, obvious.”

Army doctor, obvious, yes. But having been abroad was a deeper level of observance than John had been expecting. He nodded.

“Your limp’s really bad when you walk,” Sherlock continued, less frenetic now and more relaxing into a bit of showmanship. “But you don’t ask for a chair when you stand, like you’ve forgotten about it. That means the limp is at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatizing.”

That was putting it mildly, John though with an internal wince.

“Wounded in action, then. So, where does an army doctor get himself a suntan and wounded in action these days? Afghanistan or Iraq.”

There it was again, the feeling that all his secrets were being laid bare. John looked out the window, where he could keep his face schooled with his reflection. “You said I had a therapist.”

“You’ve got a psychosomatic limp,” Sherlock shot back in a dry undertone with just a pinch of derision, “of course you’ve got a therapist.”

Well, okay, that should have been obvious.

The silence stretched again before Sherlock took a deep breath and said, “Then there’s your brother.”

John turned to look like he’d scented prey. Perhaps he was playing into what Sherlock wanted, but he wanted to see the other man’s expression as he detailed how he’d gleaned the sordid details of Harry’s life from thirty seconds with a mobile phone. John took it out to examine, only to have it plucked from his fingers. Again, the words tumbled out like Sherlock could barely get them past his lips one at a time.

“Your phone. It’s expensive, email-enabled, MP3 player, you’re looking for a flat-share, you wouldn’t waste money on this. It’s a gift, then. Scratches. Not just one, but many over time. It’s been in the same pocket as keys and coins. The man sitting beside me wouldn’t treat his one luxury item like this, so the previous owner, then. The next bit’s easy, you know it already.”

Now that he was thinking about it, he did. “The engraving.”

“Harry Watson. Clearly a family member who’s given you his old phone. Not your father; this is a young man’s gadget. Could be a cousin, but then you’re a war hero returning home who can’t find a place to live. Unlikely you’ve got extended family, certainly not one you’re close to. So, brother it is. Now, Clara. Who’s Clara? Three kisses says it’s a romantic attachment, the expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She’s given this to him recently, the model is only six months old, so it’s a marriage in trouble, then. Six months on, he’s just given it away? If she’d left him, he’d have kept the phone, probably. People do. Sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left her. He gave the phone to you, that says he wants you to stay in touch. He’s worried about you. You’re looking for cheap accommodation, but you won’t go to your brother for help? That says you’ve got problems with him.”

Sherlock paused for a moment to take a breath, or perhaps just for dramatic purposes, or maybe just to let John’s whirling mind settle. This was a staggering amount of information collected and analyzed in a very short amount of time.

“Maybe you liked his wife,” he continued with a note of mocking, handing the phone back. “Maybe you don’t like his drinking.”

“Yeah, how can you possibly know about the drinking?”

“Shot in the dark,” he admitted. “Good one, though. Power connection: tiny scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he plugs it in to recharge, but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man’s phone, never see a drunk’s without them.”

There were tiny scuff marks. Dear god, Sherlock was going to find his secret, it was only a matter of time. And that was only because he’d have to draw the conclusion by hand, as it were.

“There you go,” he said as John put the phone away. “You see, you were right.”

“I was right? Right about what?”

“The police don’t consult amateurs,” he said with a tone that was trying to be lofty instead of bitter.

Bitter…seeking approval…was the superiority an act? If John signaled that he wasn’t put off by having everything dissected and analyzed in seconds, would that implicit acceptance override any revulsion or fear when Sherlock figured out what happened around the full moon?

“That was…amazing,” John said, somewhat surprised to find that he wasn’t feigning. He was quite looking forward to see Sherlock on a crime scene, now.

“Do you think so?” came the quiet, genuine question he had been half expecting.

“Of course it was. It was extraordinary! It was quite…extraordinary.”

Sherlock seemed baffled for once. “That’s not what people usually say.”

Had he read things wrong? “What do they usually say?”

“Piss off,” Sherlock spat.

John couldn’t help but laugh a bit.

 

“Did I get anything wrong?” Sherlock asked as they stepped out of the cab and into the halfhearted rain.

He was seeking approval. The packleader instincts grew a fraction stronger.

“Harry and me don’t get on, never have,” he allowed. “Harry and Clara are getting a divorce, split up three months ago. Harry’s a drinker.”

“Spot on, then,” murmured Sherlock. “I didn’t expect to be right about everything.”

“Harry is short for Harriet.”

John couldn’t completely hide his smile when Sherlock said incredulously, “Harry’s…your sister.”

“Now, what exactly am I supposed to be doing here?” John asked as they approached the lights and the tape.

“Your sister.”

“No, seriously, why am I here?”

Sherlock sighed. “There’s always something.”

A uniformed policewomen in a glaringly yellow slicker stood, arms crossed, on the other side of the police tape. “Hello, freak,” she said in a distinctly challenging way as they approached.

“I’m here to see Inspector Lestrade,” Sherlock said briskly, completely ignoring the…greeting?

“Why?” The black policewoman packed the word with skepticism and disapproval.

Sherlock, in turn, responded by adding a note of faux-innocence to his voice. “I was invited.”

“Why?”

“I think he wants me to take a look.” Insolence joined the faux-innocence.

Out of objections, the policewoman lifted the tape and retorted, “Well, you know what I think, don’t you?” in a tone that made it clear she’d disparaged him at length in the past.

Possibly repeatedly, given the way Sherlock grinned and said, “Always, Sally.” As he ducked under the tape and turned to face John, he added, “Even though you didn’t make it home last night.”

If that was bait, she wasn’t rising to it. She turned to John as well, acknowledging the hit by changing the subject. “Who’s this?” she asked with misdirected exasperation.

“Colleague of mine, Dr. Watson.” Every word was hard and heavy, warning Sally to leave John out of their bickering. “Dr. Watson, Sgt. Sally Donovan. Old friend.”

Well, that made the skull on the mantle make a bit more sense.

“A colleague?” Sally didn’t bother to keep the mocking note out of her voice. “How did you get a…colleague…” she turned to John, addressing him in an impersonally concerned way. “Did he follow you home?”

If Sherlock was on bad terms with the local police, that could endanger John. Perhaps he’d be better off not sharing the flat. “Look, would it be better if I just go-”

“No,” Sherlock interrupted firmly, and lifted the tape before John could finish his attempt to extricate himself, holding it high enough that he didn’t have to duck much to get under.

Having apparently given up, Sally led the way, talking into her radio. “Yeah, freak’s here. Bringing him in.”

The lights and motion – not to mention the scents – were moderately distracting. John focused on the gait of the man in front of him, recognizing a blustering swagger just as Sherlock said “Ah, Anderson, here we are again.”

Anderson was a man in a sterile oversuit, pulling a hair cap and a pair of latex gloves off to say sharply, “It’s a crime scene. I don’t want it contaminated. Are we clear on that?”

“Quite clear,” Sherlock replied with mock-obedience, but Anderson wasn’t done.

 “Magic tricks might impress Inspector Lestrade, but they don’t work on me.”

John saw Sherlock rise to the dominance challenge before he said lightly, “And is your wife away for long?”

Anderson’s head came up. “Oh, don’t pretend you worked that out. Someone told you that,” he accused with derision.

This was Sherlock in action; John focused.

In a very reasonable voice, Sherlock said, “Your deodorant told me that.”

“My deodorant.”

“It’s for men.”

That was the clue? John closed his eyes, ransacking his memory.

“Well of course it’s for men,” Anderson protested. “I’m wearing it!”

“So is Sgt. Donovan.”

Yes…he’d smelled that, he just hadn’t put it together. An aborted half-glance at the policewoman behind them showed that her posture was now one of alarm.

In the silence, Sherlock’s exaggerated sniff sounded even louder. “Oh, I think it just vaporized. May I go in?” he asked facetiously.

“You listen to me, okay?” blustered Anderson, leaning in and pointing. “Whatever it is you’re trying to imply…”

Sherlock simply walked past him, leaving John to follow. “I’m not implying anything,” he said quickly, too quickly. There was more deduction to come. “I’m sure Sally came round for a nice little chat and happened to stay over.” A pause for effect. “I assume scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees.”

John had barely recognized that the black woman was wearing a skirt. Sherlock had seen recent activity on her knees and put that together with the smell of her deodorant. What was he going to make of John’s dietary changes? Probably nothing, the first month. No pattern to pick up on.

Defeated, Anderson waved them inside with obvious annoyance.

 

“You have two minutes,” Lestrade called out firmly as they entered, pulling a pair of latex gloves on.

Unperturbed, Sherlock called back, “I may need longer.” As they passed the inspector, Sherlock passed John a sterile oversuit with directions to put it on, countering Lestrade’s protest of an unknown in his crime scene with a curt, “He’s with me.”

Lestrade, it seemed, was not so easily put off. “Yeah, but who is he?”

“I told you, he’s with me. So, where are we?”

“It’s upstairs,” the inspector said.

Then again, maybe he was.

 

“Footprint analysis,” Lestrade said as he led them upstairs, “says that the only other person in this room in the last twelve hours was a man of about five-foot-seven, and it seemed that he and the victim arrived together by car…?” He seemed a bit uncertain on that last point. “All identification is missing from the body, just like the others.”

That would help explain the difficulty of solving them, and why he’d come to Sherlock “I read your brother’s drinking habits from your mobile” Holmes.

“Have no idea who she is or where she’s from,” he finished as they stepped into the room with the corpse of a woman dressed entirely in bright, unapologetic pink.

“Well, she’s from out of town, clearly. Planned to spend a single night in London before returning home. So far, so obvious,” Sherlock trailed off, distracted.

Lestrade disagreed. “Obvious?”

“Yes, obvious, back of her right leg. Dr. Watson, what do you think?”

Well, it wasn’t obvious to him either. He aborted a glance at the inspector. “What do I think?”

“You’re the medical man.”

Oh, so he wasn’t asking John about the victim’s leg.

“We have a whole team right outside,” protested Lestrade.

“They won’t work with me!” It was almost petulant.

Lestrade didn’t care. “Look, I’m breaking every rule letting you in here!”

“Yeah… ‘cause you need me.”

That had been a growl, nearly a dominance challenge on its own. John’s focus shifted from Sherlock to the inspector. The moment stretched, and then Lestrade backed down.

“Yes I do, God help me.”

“John?”

Despite the clear command, John looked to Lestrade for permission.

“Oh, just do as he says, help yourself.” A disgruntled handwave, and the inspector relinquished his position by the body.

John and Sherlock knelt to either side of the dead woman.

“Well?” Sherlock asked quietly.

He didn’t need to inspect her to know she’d died choking on her own vomit; he could smell that from where he was. “What am I doing here?” he asked instead, just as quietly, so he didn’t cause Sherlock to lose face in front of the inspector.

“Helping me make a point.”

What point, and how? “I’m supposed to be helping you pay the rent.”

“Yeah, this is more fun,” Sherlock replied in an excited whisper.

“Fun? There’s a woman lying dead!”

“No, there are two women and three men lying dead. Keep talking, and there’ll be more.”

The intensity of that hurried whisper was not something John had expected. Sherlock was serious about this, then. He was a hunter, but he hunted for the good of the pack, not for sport.

“Now,” Sherlock said loudly, “cause of death?”

Lestrade was going to be looking. Damn it. John leaned down and tried not to smell as he sniffed at the dead woman’s face. “Asphyxiation, probably. She passed out and choked on her own vomit. I can’t smell any alcohol on her, could be… a seizure, possibly drugs.”

“It was poison,” Sherlock announced firmly.

Hoping for more explanation, John asked quietly, “How do you know?”

“Because they were all poisoned.”

Well, that cleared things up not at all. “By who?”

“By themselves.”

“Themselves?”

Lestrade called from the doorway, “We’ve identified the drug…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sherlock cut him off, one hand gesturing blindly. “It was poison.”

No one questioned the assertion.

“Same pattern each time. Each one of them disappears from their normal lives…” he paused to examine the woman’s hand intently. “From the theatre, from their home, from the office, from the pub…”

That had to be the first four victims. John moved aside as Sherlock switched sides and examined the woman’s left hand.

“And they turn up a few hours later, somewhere they’ve no reason to be, dead.” Now he was checking the woman’s collar. “No marks of violence on the body. No suggestion of compulsion,” he murmured as he lifted her hair and examined it. Then, like he was expecting to find something wonderful, he went for the woman’s…pocket? But whatever the pink object was, he shoved it back without pulling it fully out. “Each of them has taken the same poison, and as far as we can tell, taken it voluntarily.”

Impatiently, Lesrade broke into the seemingly meaningless monologue. “Sherlock, two minutes, I said. I need anything you’ve got.”

Sherlock ignored him in favor of checking something on his mobile. Then he drew a deep breath. “Okay, take this down.”

“Just tell me what you’ve got,” countered the inspector.

“I’m not going to write it down,” warned Sherlock.

“Sherlock!”

“It’s all right,” John said, pulling out a pad and pen. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.” Sherlock looked at Lestrade as if to say, ‘See? That’s common courtesy,’ before beginning his analysis. “The victim is in her early 30s, professional person. Going by her clothes… I’d guess something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. She’s travelled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night – that’s obvious from the size of her suitcase.”

“A suitcase?” Lestrade interrupted.

“A suitcase, yes. She’s been married several years, but not happily. She’s had a string of lovers, but none of them knew she was married.”

“For God’s sake, if you’re just making this up…”

Lestrade sounded less than convinced, but the tiny scuff marks around the power connector on Harry’s old mobile convinced John that Sherlock didn’t just make things up. Sure enough, Sherlock rose angrily to the challenge, returning to the woman’s left hand.

“Her wedding ring, look at it! It’s too tight. She was thinner when she first wore it, that says married for a while. Also, there’s grime in the gem setting. But the rest of her jewelry has recently been cleaned, that tells you everything you need to know about the state of her marriage.”

Of course…it all made sense when he laid it out. John kept writing, grinning and shaking his head in disbelief.

“The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside. That means it’s regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger, but it can’t be easy, so she must have a reason.”

The lovers.

“It can’t be for work, her nails are too long. She doesn’t work with her hands, so what – or rather, who – does she remove her ring for? Clearly not one lover, she’d never sustain the fiction of being single over time. So more likely, a string of them. Simple.”

“Brilliant.” The word slipped out as John was writing, and the flow of words stopped. When he looked up, Sherlock was examining him curiously. “Sorry.”

Lestrade took the break in the flow of explanation to ask, “Cardiff?”

“Obvious, isn’t it?” Sherlock asked mildly.

John took this one for Lestrade. “It’s not obvious to me.”

Sherlock gave them both a funny look. “Dear God, what’s it like inside your funny little brains? It must be so boring.”

Ah yes, boring. That was just the word to describe the experience of balancing the ancient impulses and reflexes of the lizard brain with the complications and requirements of the modern world.

“Her coat,” Sherlock said impatiently, kneeling to point, “is slightly damp. She’s been in heavy rain in the last few hours, no rain anywhere in London until the last few minutes.” He lunged for the collar. “Under her coat collar is damp, too. She’s turned it up against the wind. There’s an umbrella in her left pocket, but it’s dry and unused.”

So that’s what that was. And of course, if she didn’t use it…

“Not just wind,” Sherlock continued, “strong wind. Too strong to use her umbrella. We know from the suitcase that she intended to stay a night, so she must have come a decent distance, but she can’t have travelled more than two or three hours because her coat still hasn’t dried. So! Where has there been heavy rain and strong winds within the radius of that travel time?”

So that’s what he was checking on his mobile.

Sherlock thrust the device out as proof. “Cardiff.”

“Fantastic!” chuckled John as he struggled to write it all down.

There was a brief silence before Sherlock said, “Do you know you do that out loud?”

John glanced up at him. “Sorry, I’ll shut up.”

“No, it’s…it’s fine.” Sherlock sounded flustered as he put his mobile away.

Flustered. He’s not used to praise, even from Lestrade, who knows what he can do and calls him in when he needs the help.

“There was no suitcase,” Lestrade said, breaking them both out of their thoughts.

Sherlock looked at the inspector blankly. “I’m sorry?”

“You keep saying suitcase,” he continued almost smugly. “There wasn’t one.”

“Oh. I was assuming you’d taken it already.”

“She had a handbag. Why do you say she had a case?”

“Because she did. Her handbag, was there a mobile phone in it?”

“No.”

“That’s odd. That’s very odd,” Sherlock muttered as John got awkwardly to his feet.

“Why?” asked Lestrade.

“Never mind. We need to find her case,” he answered, still distracted.

John had no doubt that she’d had a case, but he still asked for Lestrade’s sake. “How do you know she had a case?”

Sherlock knelt to point, and John knelt with him. “Back of her right leg, tiny splash marks above the heel and calf not present on the left. She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. You don’t get that splash pattern any other way. Smallish case, judging by the spread. Case that size, woman this clothes-conscious, could only be an overnight bag. So we know she was staying a night.”

True, but they had to eliminate all the possibilities. “Maybe she checked into a hotel, left her case there?”

“She never made it to a hotel. Look at her hair. Color-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. A woman like that would never leave the hotel with her hair still looking like…”

Silence as Sherlock trailed abruptly off, eyes focused on nothing. Whatever revelation he had, John could see it light him up as he said ‘oh!’ and dashed for the door. “Sherlock?”

He was already rattling down the stairs, peeling gloves off as he went. Lestrade followed.

“What? What is it? What-what-what?”

The appeal to Sherlock’s excitement dragged him back around. “Serial killers, always hard. Have to wait for them to make a mistake,” he said as he stripped out of the sterile oversuit.

“Well, we can’t just wait!”

“Oh, we’re done waiting!” Sherlock retorted eagerly. “When she was found, she couldn’t have been here long. Is that right?”

“No, not long at all, no. Um, less than an hour.” Whatever reservations Lestrade had, he knew the efficiency of giving Sherlock whatever information he asked for.

“Less than an hour,” he repeated to himself. “An hour.” Then, urgently, “News blackout, can you do that? Don’t say that you’ve found her, nothing for a day.”

“Why?”

“Look at her, really look!”

Both John and Lestrade turned to look at the body. Pink. Pink coat, pink shoes, pink nails…

“Houston, we have a mistake! Back in a moment.” And then he was rattling down stairs again.

…pink umbrella…

“What mistake?” Lestrade called down the stairs after him.

Sherlock paused and yelled up, “Pink!”

Was her missing mobile pink? Was her suitcase? And if she never made it to the hotel, where was the case?

John looked up as Anderson was summoned with a bellow and rattled up the stairs.

“So, what was the point in all that?” he demanded.

“We’re after a psychopath,” Lestrade answered unhelpfully.

Anderson was unimpressed. “So we’re bringing in another psychopath to help?”

“If that’s what it takes. All yours.”

Anderson and his people filed past as John moved awkwardly out of the way, waiting for them to finish before holding the pad out to Lestrade.

“My notes, do you want me to…”

Apparently he didn’t, because he just said, “Sorry, you’re…” and waited for John to supply his name. “Well, you’re going to have to go, Dr. Watson. Don’t need your notes.”

Well, fine then. John made his disgruntled way down the stairs, wondering if he’d just shot himself in the metaphoric foot when it came to keeping on the good side of the police. By the time he’d got himself clear of all the sterile clothing and outside, Sherlock was still nowhere to be seen.

Sgt. Donovan saw him looking lost and called out, “He’s gone.”

“What, Sherlock Holmes?”

“He just…took off,” she said. “He does that.”

“Is he coming back?” John asked.

“Didn’t look like it.”

“Right,” he muttered, shaking his head at himself. “Right, yes. Um, sorry, where am I?”

“Brixton,” she said, holding the tape up for another officer and then keeping it up in silent invitation for him to leave.

“Right. Do you know where I’d get a cab?” He paused at the tape. “It’s just…my leg.”

“Yeah, try the main road,” she suggested unhelpfully.

Sighing, John crossed under the tape and headed down the street.

“Hey,” she called from behind him.

He turned and stopped. “Hmm?”

“You’re not his friend, he doesn’t have friends, so who are you?” came the jaded interrogative.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, thought John. “Me? I’m…I’m nobody. I’ve just met him.”

Apparently, divorcing himself from Sherlock was enough to gain a bit of her respect. “Right, bit of advice then? Stay away from that guy.”

Not likely. “Why?”

“Well, you know why he’s here?” That wasn’t a question, exactly. “He’s not paid or anything, he likes it. He gets off on it.”

Because he’s a hunter with a very clever brain, and like a sheep-herding dog with nothing to herd, he gets bored and irritable.

“The weirder the crime,” she continued, “the more he gets off. And you know what?”  She paused, but it wasn’t waiting for an answer. “One day, just showing up isn’t going to be enough. One day, we’ll be standing round a body, and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there.”

In a pig’s eye, it would be. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s a psychopath, and psychopaths get bored.”

Well, that may be so, but that didn’t mean he was dangerous. God, was Sherlock something…other?

“Coming,” she shouted to Lestrade, who’d called for her by name. Then she turned back to John. “Stay away from Sherlock Holmes,” she told him again, very seriously.

Then she turned and walked away, leaving John more certain than ever that Sherlock had been seeking his approval, because he hadn’t been put off by having been read like a book.

“Thanks,” he called dryly.

“No worries,” she called back.

As he limped down towards the main street, his peripheral vision caught a motion on a roof and he looked, superhumanly sharp eyes ignoring the darkness to inform him that Sherlock was standing there, looking for all the world like a frustrated hawk certain that there was a fat mouse somewhere around, he just couldn’t find it.

 

His rented room was impersonal and Spartan after the riot of 221B Baker St, John thought as he sat on the bed and stretched his right leg. It was unhappy with him for all the limping he’d been doing, but he was quite frankly afraid to try walking normally. He could do it, he knew, but he didn’t want to seem…too healthy for someone who’d been invalided out.

Harry’s mobile chirped. When he dug it out, there was a text from an unfamiliar number.

BAKER STREET. COME AT ONCE, IF CONVENIENT. SH.

Well, at least he used full words and punctuation. But he’d left John there at a crime scene and then just expected him to drop whatever he was doing and come “at once”?

John put the phone back.

It chirped again.

John gave serious thought to ignoring it, but curiosity got the better of him.

IF INCONVENIENT COME ANY WAY.

Really! No explanation, no apology, just a summons, like he was a dog being whistled for.

John left the mobile on the bed and limped over to the window to stare through the blinds. It chirped a third time.

He tried, God knows he tried to ignore it. But if he’d been the kind of man who could ignore that, he wouldn’t have been on the front lines.

John limped back across the room.

COULD BE DANGEROUS.

He was looking for the case. Had he found something else? John’s eyes slid over to the desk drawer.

 

There were no more texts after that third one, leading John to imagine all sorts of horrible things that could have befallen Sherlock as the cab wove through traffic. He kept looking at his watch, which made the cabbie very nervous.

When he got into the flat, Sherlock was lying on the couch, clutching his left forearm and hissing, but there was no blood.

“What are you doing?” John asked, more surprised than anything.

Sherlock opened his arm a bit. “Nicotine patch. Helps me think. Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days,” he griped. “Bad news for brain work.”

“Good news for breathing,” John retorted.

“Oh, breathing,” he sighed with an undue amount of melodrama, letting his arm fall to reveal three shiny flesh-colored squares. “Breathing is boring.”

“Is that three patches?” John limped forward in disbelief.

“It’s a three-patch problem.”

Annoyed, John looked around but couldn’t identify anything that warranted ‘come at once’. “Well?”

No response.

“You asked me to come. Took me an hour to get here, I assume it’s important.”

Like a switch had flipped, Sherlock raised his head. “Oh, yeah. Can I borrow your phone?”

John waited for an endless moment of disbelief, but nothing more was forthcoming. “My phone?”

“Don’t want to use mine, always a chance the number will be recognized. It’s on the website.”

“Mrs. Hudson’s got a phone,” John snapped.

“Yeah, but she’s downstairs. I tried shouting, but she didn’t hear.”

“I was the other side of London!”

“There was no hurry,” Sherlock said, oblivious to the fact that he’d said at once and could be dangerous.

Short of storming out, John couldn’t think of any way to really express his frustration, especially since now that he was here, he didn’t want to just sit in a cab for another hour without finding out what the potential danger was.

Irritated at himself now, he thrust the mobile at Sherlock with a “Here, here!” When Sherlock took it, John stumped a few feet away and turned around. “So, what’s this about? The case?”

“Her case.”

“Her case.”

“Her suitcase, yes. The murderer took her suitcase. First big mistake.”

That didn’t explain the phone.

Suddenly, Sherlock rolled off the couch and lurched to his feet in an explosion of motion. “It’s no use, there’s no other way, we’ll have to risk it.”

“Risk what?”

Sherlock sighed from the window. “There’s a number over there, on the table. I want you to send a text.” He tossed the phone back.

“Who am I texting?”

“Never mind. On the table, the number, now, please!”

Thumbing in the number, John shook his head. “Maybe Sgt. Donovan was right about you.”

“What’d she say?” Sherlock asked quietly from the window.

“Said you were a psychopath.”

“Oh!” He sounded pleasantly surprised. “Didn’t think she was that smart.”

It didn’t sound like a new accusation, at least. “She said, that one day, they’re going to show up at a murder scene and you’ll have provided the body.”

Naturally, Sherlock ignored the jab to say, “These words exactly: What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. Twenty-two Northumberland Terrace, please come.”

John wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to happen with his attempt at rattling Sherlock. As he finished entering the text, however, he glanced up and saw a small, luridly pink suitcase sitting by Sherlock’s chair.

Sherlock looked over. “Well? Send it.”

John reeled a step back from the case as Sherlock came over to pick it up. “Have you sent it?”

“Just a moment,” he replied, dazed, as Sherlock laid it on the table and unzipped it. Almost absently, he hit ‘send’.

“Take a look at the impossible,” he declared, flipping the lid open. “The contents of her case.”

“How did you get this?” He had to ask, just to cover all the bases.

“By looking,” came the answer, as if it should have been obvious.

“Where?”

“We know the killer drove to Lauriston Gardens, we know the killer is a man. No man could be seen with this case without attracting attention to himself, so obviously he’d feel compelled to get rid of it the moment he knew it was still in his car. Wouldn’t have taken him more than five minutes to realize his mistake. I checked every back street wide enough for a car within five minutes of Lauriston Gardens, and looked for anywhere you could easily dispose of a bulky object without being observed. Took me less than an hour to find the right skip,” he finished with satisfaction.

Of course. John wasn’t sure what was worse: that he was slightly disappointed in himself to have not thought of that on his own, or that he was slightly disappointed in Sherlock for not bringing him along. “Pink,” he said noncommittally. “You…got all of that because you realized the case would be pink.”

“Well, it had to be pink, obviously.”

“Why didn’t I think of that,” John muttered, feeling stupid.

“Because you’re stupid.”

How did– was he–

“Oh, no, don’t look like that,” Sherlock reassured him. “Practically everyone is. Sent?” he asked, pointing to the phone.

“Sent, yes. What was that about?”

“The contents of her case,” he said, slipping the paper tag – address tag, of course – back into the slot on the case. “Look at them.”

John sighed and inched forward on the chair, humoring his flatmate. Prospective flatmate, he reminded himself. “What am I looking for?”

“The impossible. One impossible thing.”

“There’s a change of clothes, a make-up bag, a wash bag, and a novel. What’s impossible?”

“Her mobile phone.” Obviously, his tone said.

“There isn’t a mobile phone.”

“That’s what’s impossible!” Sherlock jumped up to crouch, birdlike, on the seat of his chair. “No mobile in her case, no mobile in her coat pocket.”

“Well, maybe she doesn’t have one!” John was starting to get irritated at the way he was just expected to make these leaps of reasoning.

“She has a string of lovers, of course she has one,” Sherlock corrected in a reasonable tone.

“She could have left it at home.”

Sherlock answered John’s sharp tone with one of his own. “Again, string of lovers, she never leaves her phone at home.”

“And so, where is it?”

Sherlock just looked at him and said calmly, “You know where it is. More importantly, you know who has it.”

Well, now it seemed obvious. “The murderer?”

“The murderer.”

No phone. Address tag. Phone number- “Who did I just text?” John demanded, knowing full well who he’d texted.

Sherlock leaped out of the chair to pace. “Maybe she just dropped it in the back of his car, maybe she planted it on purpose to lead us to him, but the murderer…has her phone.”

John’s phone rang.

“Few hours since his last victim,” Sherlock breathed as John stared, horrified, at the number on the screen. “Now he’s received a text which can only be from her.”

The phone kept ringing.

“An innocent man would ignore a text like that, assuming it was a mistake. A guilty man…”

The caller hung up.

“Would panic,” Sherlock finished gleefully, reaching for his coat.

“Have you spoken to the police?” John asked, hoping he wasn’t about to get arrested.

“Five people are dead, there isn’t time to talk to the police.”

“Then why are you talking to me?” he demanded, thinking of the hour-long cab ride.

“You’re here.”

John wasn’t sure if Sherlock meant that his only qualification was being physically present to listen, or that what qualified him was that after everything else that had happened that day, he’d still come when Sherlock asked for help.

 “Well?”

John looked up. “Well, what?”

“Well, you could sit there and watch telly,” Sherlock said impatiently. Then, when John laughed and sat back, “Problem?”

“Sgt. Donovan,” he said, unwilling to let that bone stay ungnawed.

“What about her?”

“Said you get off on this, you enjoy it.”

“And I said danger and here you are,” countered Sherlock sharply, adjusting his scarf and striding from the flat without another word.

Bluff called. They were two of a kind, and Sherlock knew it. “Damn it!”

John struggled out of the chair, grabbed his cane, and limped after his pa- flatmate. His flatmate.

 

“Where are we going?” John demanded as they crossed the street, walking briskly.

“Northumberland Terrace is a five-minute walk from here.”

“What, you think he’s stupid enough to go there?”

“No, I think he’s brilliant enough. I love the brilliant ones,” Sherlock said in tones of pure appreciation. “They’re so desperate to get caught.”

“Why?”

“Appreciation.” He said it casually. Familiarly. “At long last, the spotlight. To you it’s an arrest; to them it’s a coming-out party. That’s the frailty of genius,” he continued more gently. “It needs an audience.”

“Yes,” John said shortly, remembering the look on Sherlock’s face any time he’d expressed even a single word of praise for his deductive skills. “Yes. I suppose it does.”

 

The restaurant was small and cozy, almost rustic, with red candlesticks in wax-covered jugs burning warmly on half the tables.

“Twenty-two Northumberland Terrace,” Sherlock said with a nod in the right direction as he whipped his scarf off, across the small table from John with his back to the window. “Keep your eyes on it.”

John hung his cane from the back of his chair. “Don’t you want to keep your eyes on it?”

“I am.”

Another tiny nod; John turned to look and saw a mirror where Sherlock could watch the window behind him without seeming to.

“Yeah, but he’s not just going to ring the doorbell though, is he?”

“No, of course not,” Sherlock said quietly. “But he’ll pass by. He might even loiter.”

“Half of London’s passing by,” John said doubtfully.

“I’ll recognize him.”

“You know who he is?”

“I know what he is.”

“Sherlock!” said a new voice. A stocky, balding man approached their table happily and said, in an Italian accent, “Anything on the menu, whatever you want, free.” He kissed his forefinger. “All on the house, you and your date.”

“Do you want to eat?” Sherlock asked casually.

Was he- did he think-? “I’m not his date,” John protested.

“Ohhhh, this man!” The stranger hugged Sherlock around the shoulders. Then he looked around and said in a hushed voice, “He got me off a murder charge!”

“This is Angelo,” Sherlock said with forced patience. “Three years ago I successfully proved to Inspector Lestrade that at the time of a particularly vicious triple murder, Angelo was in a completely different part of town. Car-jacking.”

“He cleared my name,” Angelo said enthusiastically.

Sherlock was less enthused. “Cleared it a bit.”

Angelo stood up and drew himself up straight. “Anything on the menu, I cook it for you myself.”

“Thank you, Angelo,” Sherlock said with a forced smile.

“If not for you,” Angelo said somberly, hand on his chest, “I’d have gone to prison.”

“You did go to prison,” Sherlock pointed out.

Awkward silence fell.

“I’ll get you a candle for the table,” Angelo said as though the last exchange had never happened. “It’s more romantic, hmmm?”

The knowing eyebrow-waggle was too much. “I’m not his date!”

Angelo just placed menus before each of them and sidled off.

“You may as well eat,” Sherlock said. “We might be waiting a long time.”

“Hmmm.” With having wasted cab fare, he may as well get some good food out of it. “Are you going to?”

“What day is it?”

“It’s…Wednesday…”

“I’m okay for a bit.”

John could almost feel the crest he didn’t have raising in alarm. “You haven’t eaten tod- for God’s sake, you need to eat!”

“No, you need to eat, I need to think. The brain’s what counts,” he said as Angelo placed a jug on the table, stuck a red candlestick in it, and lit the wick. “Everything else is transport.”

“You might consider refueling,” John said evenly.

“Hmm.”

Okay. They were apparently going to have to address the “date” thing.

“So,” John said bluntly, “do you have a girlfriend who…feeds you up sometimes?”

 Sherlock looked mildly affronted. “That what girlfriends do? Feed you up?”

John didn’t appreciate the mocking tone. “You don’t have a girlfriend, then.”

“It’s not really my area.”

John made a noncommittal noise and dropped his eyes to the menu, keeping his face blank before saying, “Oh. Riiight,” as if he’d just thought of what he’d been dreading having to ask. “D’you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way,” he added when Sherlock looked both mildly affronted and uncomfortable.

“I know it’s fine,” was the immediate reply.

“So you don’t have a boyfriend, then?”

“No.”

Too immediate. Definitely uncomfortable. “Right. Okay.”

Sherlock just stared.

“So, unattached, like me.” That was going to make things easier, not having a jealous lover misunderstanding things. “Good,” he said definitively, looking down at the menu again.

There was silence for a minute before Sherlock said his name awkwardly, sending John’s pulse skyrocketing. Did he want-?

“You should know that I consider myself married to my work,” he continued uncomfortably, “and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any-”

“No.”

“-kind of-”

“No, no.” John glanced around, but Angelo was nowhere near. “I wasn’t asking you out. No.” Sherlock made a motion like he was de-ruffling. “I’m just saying, it’s all…fine. Whatever shakes your…” Where had he been going with that? “…boat. I’m going to shut up now.”

“I think that’s for the best,” Sherlock agreed.

John was halfway down the menu when it occurred to him that being unattached didn’t mean there weren’t other…concerns. “So,” he said awkwardly, “you don’t…do…anything?”

“Everything else is transport,” Sherlock repeated firmly, more than a hint of steel in his voice.

John nodded and returned his attention to the menu.

 

In the end, he’d ordered veal with something (because when was he going to get a chance to enjoy veal again on an army pension?) but Angelo insisted on upgrading it to a House Special veal. It was good, not that he had much experience to compare it to, but part of him couldn’t help wonder what it would have tasted like raw.

Raw, and warm.

And still bleeding.

After that, the salad and dense, buttered bread just weren’t very appealing to him.

Across the table, Sherlock was drumming his fingers with that frustrated herd-dog impatience.

“No sign yet, then?” John asked carefully.

The drumming fingers stopped and flattened against the table in a restrained slap. “I suppose it is a long shot,” he answered reluctantly. “We have to be realistic.”

Reality sometimes wasn’t very realistic, John thought. But what he said was, “You said before you didn’t know who the killer was, but you knew what.”

“So do you, if you think about it. Why don’t people just think?” he muttered, frustration making the words sharp.

John couldn’t resist. “Oh, because we’re stupid.” For emphasis, or rather to keep him from saying something worse, he shoved a forkful of dressing-slimed greens into his mouth.

With a visible effort, Sherlock reined in his first impulse and then said slowly, “We know the killer drove his victims, but there were no marks of coercion or violence on the bodies.”

Good, he was actually explaining. Maybe next time, John wouldn’t need the trail laid out for him so plainly.

“Each one of those five people climbed into a stranger’s car voluntarily. The killer was someone they trusted.”

Except they likely hadn’t had anyone in common, the chance of five otherwise-unrelated people all knowing the same sixth was vanishingly small in a town like London. “But not someone they knew,” John half-asked.

“Five completely different people, they had no friends in common.” Sherlock’s words were speeding up; the deduction was coming. “And another thing, Lauriston Gardens, did you see it? Twitching curtains, little old ladies. Little old ladies, they’re my favorite, better than any security cameras. But according to the police, no one remembers a strange car parked outside an empty house. Not one person remembered.”

“I see what you’re saying.” John did remember the twitching curtains, actually. They’d pulled at his peripheral vision, enticing the lizard brain with thoughts of fat, juicy birds. Remembering that was making it hard to focus on more complex, civilized thoughts. “No, I don’t,” he admitted. “What are you saying? That the killer’s got an invisible car?”

He thought he’d missed something obvious, but Sherlock looked…excited.

“Yes. Yes, exactly!”

“Then…I definitely don’t see what you’re saying.”

Sherlock sighed, but it wasn’t an aggravated sigh. It was the sort of sigh you’d let out as preparation, and John knew the answer was coming.

“There are cars,” he began slowly, relishing every word, “that pass like ghosts, unseen, unremembered. There are people we trust, always. When we’re alone, when we’re lost, when we’re drunk.” Faster now, but not rapid-fire, the excitement of a predator about to flush his prey. “We never see their faces, but every day we disappear into their cars and let the trap close around us.” His eyes drifted up past John’s, to the mirror. Whatever he saw, John didn’t. Sherlock turned his head just enough to see 22 Northumberland Terrace without turning fully, and then shouted, “Angelo! Glass of white wine, quickly!”

What did that have to do with anything?

Sherlock looked at John intently, intensely, the predator about to pounce, and his words were low, nearly a quiet growl. “I give you: the perfect murder weapon of the modern age. The invisible car.” A pause, and the answer came forth in a hushed whisper: “The London cab!”

Behind him, a cab was turning into the alley.

“There’s been cabs up and down this street all night,” John said, trusting but needing to be sure.

“This one’s stopped.”

“He’s looking for a fare.”

But they both watched as a woman approached and was turned away. Sherlock grinned.

“But we don’t know it’s him,” John warned.

“We don’t know it isn’t,” countered Sherlock as Angelo set the glass down in front of him. “Thank you,” he said mildly.

Then, without warning, he splashed the wine into his own face and mopped it roughly up with the napkin.

“Watch,” Sherlock commanded. “Don’t interfere. Angelo? Headless nun!”

The stocky Italian grinned. “Ah, now that was a case. Same again?” he asked as Sherlock shrugged his coat on.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he agreed politely.

Angelo grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him bodily out of the chair. “Out of my restaurant!” he roared, dragging Sherlock to the door. “Cretino! You’re drunk!” More yelling in Italian, shoving Sherlock out to the street, and he finished with, “And stay away!”

John watched as Sherlock stumbled, nearly falling, then caught himself unsteadily and wove a convincingly drunk path towards the stopped cab. Angelo returned to the table and watched, beside him.

“What’s he doing?”

“Sherlock’s on the case,” answered Angelo. “Bad news for bad people.”

Very intent now, John watched Sherlock have a silent dialogue with the cabbie and be rebuffed. The tail he didn’t have wanted to lash, making his leg twitch. His inhuman eyesight let him see the motion of Sherlock pulling out his mobile, holding it to his ear. The apparent inebriation vanished as he said something John could only see. Then he lunged back towards the driver’s window, reaching into the cab with both hands, to all appearances intent on violence. Then he pulled back, flailing wildly. Predator instincts caught the almost-invisible flash of something sticking into Sherlock’s arm, something that ought not be there.

“It’s okay,” Angelo said reassuringly. “All part of the plan.”

The cabbie got out and “helped” Sherlock – who was no longer in control of his motions – into the back seat. Sherlock’s mouth moved three times, same word, one syllable. John was rubbish at reading lips, but it didn’t matter what the word was. Hackles he didn’t have were rising, and his flatmate – his packmate! – was being abducted by a serial killer.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he said, shifting his weight to stand.

“No, no, no,” Angelo corrected. “All part of the plan. Sherlock always has a plan.”

The taxi was driving off. “Yes, and it’s gone wrong.”

Without another word he was up and out of the restaurant, running after the cab. Too slow, too slow! Balls of the feet, head down, arms back for balance, John sprinted with all the strength and speed he shouldn’t have had, everything he was hiding from his therapist and Sherlock and everyone else.

Northumberland Terrace was a five-minute walk from Baker Street. At a dead run, chasing a cab weaving through nighttime traffic, it was a three-minute sprint and John caught up just in time to see the door to 221B close behind them.

Think. Think like a man, not like a predator. Think like a soldier. Sherlock was incapacitated, probably drugged. He was a hostage. Frontal assault was out. He had no backup. He needed backup.

John fumbled Harry’s mobile out, blindly dialing 999. When someone picked up, he gasped, “The serial killer’s at 221b Baker Street, he’s got a sixth victim, hurry!” Then he hung up and, for good measure, turned the phone off. That took care of backup. But like hell was he just going to sit and wait. Twitching curtains…

John scanned the building opposite, locating a likely window, and dashed for the door. It was only a breathless minute and a half before he was crouched down behind a window open only a hand’s bredth, gun out from the back of his pants, watching through the curtains as the cabbie stood and watched Sherlock’s limp form, hoping it was still ‘drugged’ and not ‘dead’.

Well, John thought as seconds stretched into minutes, the cabbie would have left if Sherlock was dead. Still drugged, then. The police had time to get there, they’d be there any minute. Aaaany minute now. Where were the damned police? Did they think this was a prank, did- oh, they probably had to call Inspector Lestrade at his home, wake him up. Damn it!

It seemed like forever before Sherlock stirred. The police still hadn’t shown. The cabbie hurled Sherlock into – he’d taken the table and chairs from the kitchen and moved them in front of the couch, why?

Genius needs an audience.

This was a brilliant serial killer, and he was in the presence of an equally brilliant detective. Consulting detective. Finally, he had a worthy adversary. He was going to draw it out. John watched the strutting foreplay with what he was surprised to discover was growing anger. On the plus side, the cabbie was standing with his back to the window. John had a clear shot if he had to take it. On the minus side, his body was blocking John’s view of Sherlock, and whatever was going on with…whatever he’d taken out of his pockets.

More strutting, this time taking him away from the table. Sherlock was slumped onto it, but still moving. Still drugged. John could see several small shapes – two dark, two small and light. The poison? Bottles, and pills? But why two?

A bit more strutting, and the cabbie sat down across Sherlock, who dragged himself upright. They’d be trading verbal blows, feinting and swiping, feeling each other out. Sherlock would be stalling for time, John hoped. Maybe not intentionally, but he would be much less concerned with the danger than with the chance to unravel a truly exciting mystery.

Finally, the police. John kept his eyes on his prey, steadfastly ignoring the flashing light and all that motion. Sherlock was standing slowly up. Was he looking out the window, checking surreptitiously for twitching curtains?

Did he know John was there?

There; that was looking in the right direction. His posture changed, and John struggled to identify why his instincts were screaming at him to shoot. Slowly, Sherlock sat back down and he was holding…

…he was holding…

Lifting to his mouth.

Surrender, whispered John’s mind. That was the change; he’d seen it in men as they realized there was no way out.

Genius needs an audience.

What do people usually say? ‘Piss off.’

Did you know you do that out loud?

Sherlock’s hand was getting closer to his mouth.

John fired.

The cabbie jerked and then slumped onto the table. Sherlock leaped back, nearly falling over the chair before staggering to the window. Down below, the growing nest of police stirred in alarm.

John bolted for the back stairs.

 

By the time he made it back from disposing of his involvement, they had the tape up and Sherlock in a blanket in the back of the ambulance. Sgt Donovan saw John hovering across the street and came over, either out of pity or out of a need to gossip.

“Freak nearly got himself killed,” she said smugly. “Killer had two pills, made him literally pick his poison.”

John schooled his features into smooth concern. “Lucky he picked the right one, then.”

“Oh, no, he didn’t take it,” she corrected. “Someone shot the killer. Pity they didn’t wait, we could have been cleaning up two psychopaths instead of one.”

“Donovan!” That would be Inspector Lestrade at last.

“Coming!” she called back. “Remember,” she warned John as she walked away.

He watched as Lestrade talked to Sherlock, saw Sherlock go into deduction mode and then break off abruptly as he saw John standing across the way. Lestrade followed as he approached, said something John couldn’t hear that angered Sherlock, then turned away.

“Sgt. Donovan’s been explaining everything to me,” John said innocently, hands in his pockets, as Sherlock approached in his blanket. “It’s…and the two pills? Dreadful business, dreadful.”

“Where is it?” Sherlock demanded quietly.

Did he mean the gun? “Where’s what?”

“Don’t,” he muttered in a strong undertone, “just…don’t. What did you do with the gun?”

“Oh, er…bottom of the Thames,” John answered just as quietly.

Sherlock nodded in distracted approval. “We’ll need to get rid of the powder burns on your finger.”

John snorted, holding back a laugh, and turned to grin at the milling police. Sherlock was clearly rattled, or he’d have realized that, being a soldier, John knew all about that and that’s why his hands were in his pockets.

“I don’t suppose you’d serve time for this,” he continued, “but let’s avoid the court case.”

“I ran after the cab,” John said, “called the police, of course, and then I thought: better keep an eye on you.”

Sherlock looked at him oddly. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right.”

“You have just killed a man,” he said warily.

Wasn’t the first, not likely to be the last. He’d killed a man, yes, but he’d saved a packmate. Who…likely needed confirmation that he was John’s packmate. “I’ve seen men die before,” he said mildly. “Good men, friends of mine. Thought I’d never sleep again.” He paused to make sure Sherlock was paying attention, caught and held his eyes. “I’ll sleep fine tonight.”

The quiet gratification on Sherlock’s face was more rewarding than he thought it would be. “Quite right.”

John gave him the moment before calling him on what he thought he’d seen. “You were going to take the damn pill, weren’t you?”

Sherlock gave him a blank look for just a moment, surprise at having been caught, before he said, “Course not, playing for time.”

Can’t lie to your packleader, Sherlock. “No, you weren’t. That’s how you get your kicks, isn’t it? Risking your life to prove you’re clever.”

“Why would I do that?” he blustered.

“Because you’re an idiot.”

For a long moment that seeped in: that John had been clever, too. That John could keep up with him, would keep up with him, would throw himself at the danger to keep Sherlock safe and deserved his respect, even if he needed the clues laid out from time to time. Then Sherlock grinned, and John grinned back, and it was as good as sealed in blood.

In capitulation to their new dynamic, Sherlock laid one word out like an offering: “Dinner?”

“Starving,” John said, accepting the olive branch.

“There’s a good Chinese, end of the road,” Sherlock said as they walked side by side down the street. “Stays open ‘til two.”

Which was good, because it had to be past midnight.

“You can always tell a good Chinese by examining the bottom third of the door handle,” Sherlock started, but he was interrupted by Inspector Lestrade shouting to get his attention.

“Oi! Sherlock, still got questions for you!”

They both stopped and turned towards him, but it was John who got the first punch.

“Uh, Inspector Lestrade,” he said in his doctor voice, “to my certain knowledge, this man hasn’t eaten for several days. Now, if you want him alive for your next case, what he’s going to do right now…is have dinner.”

“And who the hell are you?”

Dominance challenge. Too bad, John wasn’t backing down. But it took a moment to make sure the right word was going to come out. “I’m his doctor.”

Sherlock looked at him funny, like he figured out there was something John wasn’t saying, but all he said was, “And only a fool argues with his doctor.”

It was an apology, John was certain. But Lestrade wasn’t feeling up to fighting both of them this late at night.

“Okay, I’ll pull you in tomorrow. Off you go.”

“Thank you,” John said, packleader taking control again as they turned and resumed walking.

“So,” Sherlock said, taking the blanket off from around his shoulders. “Ran after a cab. Told you that limp was psychosomatic.”

“I knew it was,” John admitted easily.

Sherlock lifted the tape, and they both ducked underneath. “You did get shot, though,” he said, but it was a question.

“Oh, yeah.” John grinned. “In the shoulder.”

“Oh.”

While Sherlock tried to figure out what could have caused a psychocomatic limp, Mrs. Hudson hurried at them from the side.

“Sherlock! What have you done to my house?”

“Nothing wrong with your house, Mrs. Hudson,” he answered in an impatient singsong, “which is more than can be said for the dead serial killer on the first floor.”

“Dead what?”

“Good news for London,” he continued, “bad news for your carpet.” And he handed her the blanket with a curt, “Good night, Mrs. Hudson,” as he and John continued walking again.

“I’m not your housekeeper!” she shouted back petulantly, making them both grin.

“Night, Mrs. Hudson,” John called over his shoulder.

Tomorrow – later today? – John would have to take a cab across town, fetch his things and move in properly. But for the moment, he was content be striding side by side down the street with his new packmate, their steps falling into sync as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Two predators, strong and clever, facing the world with perfect confidence and daring it to even think about getting between them and their prey.

Even if that “prey” was a plate of chow mein and a bowl of wonton soup.